Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00121)

Nov 30 2002

Dear Mic:

As to your reasoning that lack of oxygen caused the brain to review
life in general and have a vision.

Looking at the event (several say that have also experiences this) the
important thing is the EVENT as recalled from memory.

Any time the body dies whatever the medical cause, the brain is the
last to die and always thee is oxygen deprivation. But such visions
are rather rare, also they are not invariably recalled.

Looking on it as a change in consciousness, the Witness is apparently
one and the same. It is evidence for several planes of consciousness
experienced and remembered by the ONE STABLE WITNESS -- "ourselves."

I don't think I would try to say much more than that, because it
becomes speculative and is not supported by the known facts.

Here are some Theosophical philosophical notes on this matter to
consider

-------------------------



STATES AFTER DEATH

====================


SOUL (MIND) IS IMMORTAL

That man possesses an immortal soul is the common belief of humanity;
to this Theosophy adds that he is a soul; and further that all nature
is sentient, that the vast array of objects and men are not mere
collections of atoms fortuitously thrown together and thus without law
evolving law, but down to the smallest atom all is soul and spirit
ever evolving under the rule of law which is inherent in the whole.


EVOLUTION THROUGH REINCARNATION

We are therefore not appearing for the first time when we come upon
this planet, but have pursued a long, an immeasurable course of
activity and intelligent perception on other systems of globes, some
of which were destroyed ages before the solar system condensed. This
immense reach of the evolutionary system means, that this planet on
which we now are is the result of the activity and the evolution of
some other one that died long ago, leaving its energy to be used in
the bringing into existence of the earth, and that the inhabitants of
the latter in their turn came from some older world to proceed here
with the destined work in matter.



SEVEN-FOLD CLASSIFICATION OF PRINCIPLES -- A BASIC

Theosophy places the old doctrine before western civilization

1. 1.	The Body, or Rupa.
2. 2.	Vitality, or Prana-Jiva.
3. 3.	Astral Body, or Linga-Sarira.
4. 4.	Animal Soul, or Kama-Rupa
5. 5.	Human Soul, or Manas.
6. 6.	Spiritual Soul, or Buddhi.
7. 7.	Spirit, or Atma, (This Principle synthesizes the other 6.)


The words in the 4th column (italics), are equivalents in the
Sanskrit language adopted for the English terms. This classification
stands to this day for all practical purposes, a later arrangement
places the Astral body second instead of third in the category. It at
once gives an idea of what man is, very different from the vague
description by the words "body and soul," and also boldly challenges
the materialistic conception that mind is the product of brain, a
portion of the body.

This immortal trinity is that called Atma-Buddhi-Manas in Sanskrit,
difficult terms to render in English. ATMA is Spirit, BUDDHI is the
highest power of intellection, that which discerns and judges, and
MANAS is Mind.

This threefold collection is the Real Man.

REAL MAN:
Atma,	or Spirit, [this is neither yours nor mine, but is a "ray" of
the Universal Spirit],
Buddhi, or Discernment, Discrimination, Wisdom, [accumulated
experience over eternity],
Manas, or Mind. [thought, imagination, memory, fancy, choice,
etc...]

The four lower instruments or vehicles are shown in this table:

LOWER VEHICLES:
* Kama,	or The Passions and Desires, [selfishness, ignorance,
isolation, etc...]
* Prana,	or The Life Principle, [a portion of the Universal LIFE:
Jiva]
* Linga Sarira,	or The Astral Body, [atoms and sub-atoms -- fields of
force]
* Sthula Sarira,	or The Physical Body. [molecules, cells, structure,
etc...]
*

DEATH MARKS THE SEPARATION OF THE LOWER VEHICLE

When the hour arrives for their separation to begin, the combination
can no longer be kept up, the physical body dies, the atoms of which
each of the four is composed begin to separate from each other, and
the whole collection being disjointed is no longer fit for one as an
instrument for the real man. This is what is called "death" among us
mortals, but it is not death for the real man because he is deathless,
persistent, immortal. He is therefore called the Triad, or
indestructible trinity.

The Physical man is known as the Quaternary or Mortal Four.

* The visible physical man is:
*
* Brain, Nerves, Blood, Bones, Lymph, Muscles, Organs of Sensation and
Action, Skin.
*
* The unseen physical man is:
*
* Astral Body, Passions and Desires, Life Principle (called prana or
jiva).
*
It will be seen that the physical part of our nature is thus extended
to a second department which, though invisible to the physical eye, is
nevertheless material and subject to decay. Because people in general
have been in the habit of admitting to be real only what they can see
with the physical eye, they have at last come to suppose that the
unseen is neither real nor material.


KAMA - DESIRE & PASSION ARE NOT MIND

Kama, Desire and Passion is the fourth, the balance principle of the
whole seven. It stands in the middle, and from it the ways go up or
down. It is the basis of action, and the mover of the will. As the old
Hermetists say: "Behind will stands desire." For whether we wish to do
well or ill, we have to first arouse within us the desire for either
course. Then "We" choose.


A "GOOD" MAN

The "good" man who at last becomes a sage, had at one time in his many
lives to arouse the desire for the company of holy men and to keep his
desire for progress alive in order to continue on his way. Even a
Buddha or a Jesus had first to make a vow, which is a desire, in some
life, that he would save the world or some part of it, and to
persevere with the desire alive in his heart through countless lives.
The high desires come from the influence of and aspiration to the
trinity above, of Mind, Buddhi, and Spirit. The "God" within each of
us, begins with Manas or Mind, and it is the struggle between this
"God" and the "brute" below, which Theosophy speaks of and warns
about.


A "BAD" MAN

On the other hand, the "bad" man life after life took unto himself
low, selfish, wicked desires, thus debasing instead of purifying this
principle. The low passion and desire is that shown by the constant
placing of the consciousness entirely below in the body and the astral
body. It is selfish and isolates the man from others and his
environment. It is an impossible, a false condition, and cannot be
sustained indefinitely.


MIND -- THE 5th PRINCIPLE, AND ATMA-BUDDHI [THE MONAD]

The fifth principle is MANAS, and is usually translated Mind. Other
names have been given to it, but it is the Knower, the Perceiver, the
Thinker. The sixth is BUDDHI, or spiritual discernment; the seventh is
ATMA, or SPIRIT, the ray from the Absolute Being. The course of
evolution developed the lower principles and produced at last the form
of man with a brain of better and deeper capacity than that of any
other animal.

But this man in form was not man in mind, and needed the fifth
principle, the thinking, perceiving one, to differentiate him from the
animal kingdom and to confer the power of becoming self-conscious. The
Immortal Monad, composed of Atma and Buddhi, was imprisoned in these
forms, for without the presence of the monad, evolution could not go
forward.


THE LIGHTING UP OF MANAS

Going back for a moment to the time when the races of mankind were
devoid of mind, the question arises, "Who gave the MIND, Where did it
come from, and What is it ?"

It is the link between ATMA, the "Spirit of God above" and the
"personality" below. It was given to the mindless monads by others
who had gone through this process ages upon ages before in earlier
worlds and systems of worlds, and it came from other evolutionary
periods which were completed long before our solar system had begun.
The manner in which this light of mind was given to the Mindless Men
can be understood from the illustration of one candle lighting many.
The Sons of Wisdom, who are the Elder Brothers of every family of men
on any Globe, have the light, derived by them from others who reach
back, and yet farther back, in endless procession with no beginning or
end. They set fire to the combined lower principles and the Monad,
thus lighting up Manas in the "new men" and preparing another great
race for final initiation.


MANAS REINCARNATES

Manas, or the Thinker, is the reincarnating being. It is the Immortal
who carries the results and values of all the different lives lived on
earth or elsewhere. Its nature becomes dual as soon as it is attached
to a body. For the human brain is a superior organism and Manas [Mind]
uses it to reason from premises to conclusions. This is the lower
aspect of the Thinker or Manas, and not, as some have supposed, the
highest and best gift belonging to man.

Its higher aspect, is the intuitional, which knows, and does not
depend on reason. The lower, and purely intellectual, is nearest to
the principle of Desire, and is thus distinguished from its other
side, which has affinity for the spiritual principles above. If the
Thinker, becomes wholly intellectual, the entire nature begins to tend
downward; for intellect alone is cold, heartless, selfish, since it is
not lighted up by the two spiritually superior principles of Buddhi
and Atma.

In Manas the thoughts of all lives are stored. The total quantity of
life thoughts makes up the stream or thread of a life's meditation --
"that upon which the heart was set" -- and that is stored in Manas, to
be brought out again at any time.


LOWER MANS -- BRAIN-MIND

It is this lower Manas which retains all the impressions of this
life-time, and sometimes strangely exhibits them in trances or dreams,
delirium, induced states, here and there in normal conditions, and
very often at the time of physical death.

It interferes with the action of Higher Manas because at the present
point of evolution, Desire and all corresponding powers, faculties,
and senses are the most highly developed. This obscures, as it were,
the white light of the spiritual side of Manas. It is tinted by each
object presented to it, whether it be a thought-object or a material
one, and memory continually presents pictures to Lower Manas, with the
result that the Higher is obscured.


MEMORY AS A DEATH VISION

Memory of a prior life is not needed to prove that we passed through
that existence, nor is the fact of not remembering a good objection.
We forget the greater part of the occurrences of the years and days of
this life, but no one would say for that reason we did not go through
these years. We are all subject to the limitations imposed upon the
Ego by the new brain in each life. This is why we are not able to keep
the pictures of the past. The brain is the instrument for the memory
of the soul, and, being new in each life, has only a certain capacity.
That capacity will be fully availed of just according to the Ego's own
desire and prior conduct, because past living will have increased or
diminished its power.

By living according to the dictates of the Soul, the brain may at
least be made porous to the Soul's recollections; as the brain-matter
had no part in the life last lived, it is in general unable to
remember. And this is a wise law, for we should be very miserable if
the deeds of our former lives were not hidden from our view until by
discipline we become able to bear a knowledge of them.


HIGHER MANAS -- INTUITION, GENIUS.

Higher Manas, if able to act, becomes what we sometimes call Genius.
If Genius is completely master, then one may become a "God." Along
the pathway of life, we do see occasionally the marks of men who are
geniuses, or great seers and prophets. In these the Higher powers of
MANAS are active and the person is "illuminated." Such were the great
Sages of the past, men in whom Higher Manas was active. Presently,
now and then, we may see MANAS shed a bright ray on the man below, to
be soon obscured, however, by the effect of dogmatic religious
education which has always prevented Manas from gaining full activity.


THE "GOD" IN MAN = ATMA - BUDDHI - MANAS

In Man the higher Trinity, is the "God" above. This is ATMA, and may
be called the HIGHER SELF. Next is the spiritual part of the soul
called BUDDHI [Wisdom and Discrimination]; when thoroughly united with
MANAS this may be called the Divine Ego [Higher Manas]. And when we
either wholly or now and then become consciously united with Buddhi,
the Spiritual Soul, we behold "God," as it were.

They are the immortal part of us; they, in fact, and no other are we.
This should be firmly grasped by the mind, for upon its clear
understanding depends the comprehension of the entire doctrine.

The inner Ego who reincarnates, taking on body after body, storing up
the impressions of life after life, gaining experience and adding it
to the divine Ego, suffering and enjoying through an immense period of
years, is the fifth principle -- MANAS -- not united to Buddhi.


INDIVIDUALITY IS PERMANENT -- IMMORTAL

The permanent individuality gives to every man the feeling of being
himself and not some other; it bridges the gap made by sleep; in like
manner it bridges the gap made by the sleep of death. It is this, and
not our brain, that lifts us above the animal.

The forces of thought are generated by Manas, that is, by the thinking
of the life time. Each thought makes a physical as well as mental link
with the desire in which it is rooted.

All life is filled with such thoughts, and when the period of rest
after death is ended, Manas is bound by innumerable electrical
magnetic threads to earth by reason of the thoughts of the last life,
and therefore by desire.


MATTER -- ALSO PERMANENT -- HAS BEEN THROUGH ALL FORMS

The Permanent Individuality [Manas] has been through every sort of
experience, for Theosophy insists on its permanence -- as an
Immortal -- and in the necessity for its continuing to take part in
evolution. It has a duty to perform, consisting in raising up to a
higher state of consciousness and intelligence, all the matter
concerned in the chain of globes to which the earth belongs.

We have all lived and taken part in civilization after civilization,
race after race, on earth, and will so continue throughout all the
rounds and races until the seventh is complete.


PERFECTION FOR ALL ASPECTS OF MAN

Although reincarnation is the law of nature, the complete trinity of
Atma-Buddhi-Manas does not yet fully incarnate in this race. They use
and occupy the body by means of the entrance of Manas, the lowest of
the three, and the other two shine upon it from above, constituting
the "God in Heaven." For that reason man is not yet fully conscious,
and reincarnations are needed to at last complete the incarnation of
the whole Godlike trinity in the body.

When that has been accomplished the race will have become as gods, and
the divine trinity being in full possession the entire mass of matter,
will be perfected and raised up for the next step.

Reincarnation does not mean that we go into animal forms after death.
"Once a man always a man" is the saying in the Great Lodge. Evolution
having brought Manas the Thinker and Immortal Person on to this plane,
cannot send him back to the brute which has not Manas.


MEMORY AS A DEATH VISION

Memory of a prior life is not needed to prove that we passed through
that existence, nor is the fact of not remembering a good objection.
We forget the greater part of the occurrences of the years and days of
this life, but no one would say for that reason we did not go through
these years. We are all subject to the limitations imposed upon the
Ego by the new brain in each life. This is why we are not able to keep
the pictures of the past. The brain is the instrument for the memory
of the soul, and, being new in each life, has only a certain capacity.
That capacity will be fully availed of just according to the Ego's own
desire and prior conduct, because past living will have increased or
diminished its power.

By living according to the dictates of the Soul, the brain may at
least be made porous to the Soul's recollections; as the brain-matter
had no part in the life last lived, it is in general unable to
remember. And this is a wise law, for we should be very miserable if
the deeds of our former lives were not hidden from our view until by
discipline we become able to bear a knowledge of them.


UNIVERSAL LAWS AND REINCARNATION

Theosophy applies to the self -- the Thinker -- the same laws which
are seen everywhere in operation throughout nature, and those are all
varieties of the great law that effects follow causes and no effect is
without a cause.

Viewing life and its probable object, with all the varied experience
possible for man, one must be forced to the conclusion that a single
life is not enough for carrying out all that is intended by Nature, to
say nothing of what man himself desires to do. The scale of variety in
experience is enormous.

There is a vast range of powers latent in man which we see may be
developed if opportunity be given. Knowledge infinite in scope and
diversity lies before us, and especially in these days when special
investigation is the rule.

We perceive that we have high aspirations with no time to reach up to
their measure, while the great troop of passions and desires, selfish
motives and ambitions, war with us and among themselves, pursuing us
even to the door of death. All these have to be tried, conquered,
used, subdued. One life is not enough for all this.

We come back to earth because on it and with the beings upon it our
deeds were performed; because it is the only proper place where
punishment and reward can be justly meted out; because here is the
only natural spot in which to continue the struggle toward perfection,
toward the development of the faculties we have and the destruction of
the wickedness we created, and which is attached to us.

Justice to ourselves and to all other beings demands it, for we cannot
live for ourselves, and it would be unjust to permit some of us to
escape, leaving those who were participants with us to remain or to be
plunged into a hell where the victim receives no compensation.

And lastly, the fact that certain Inherent Ideas are common to the
whole race is explained by the Sages as due to recollection of such
ideas which were implanted in the human mind, by those Brothers and
Sages who learned their lessons and were perfected in former ages,
long before the development of this globe began. These Inherent
Ideas -- virtues and brotherhood -- will always be recollected as they
accompany the Ego through the long pilgrimage to Perfection.


AFTER DEATH STATES - CHRONOLOGY

In chronological order we go into kama-loka -- or the plane of
desire -- first on the demise of the body, and then, the higher
principles, the Real Man, falls into the state of Devachan.

The breath leaves the body and we say the man is dead, but that is
only the beginning of death; it proceeds on other planes. When the
frame is cold and eyes closed, all the forces of the body and mind
rush through the brain, and by a series of pictures the whole life
just ended is imprinted indelibly on the Inner Man, not only in a
general outline, but down to the smallest detail of even the most
minute and fleeting impression.

At this moment, the real man is busy in the brain, and not until his
work there is ended is the person gone. When this solemn work is over
the astral body detaches itself from the physical, and, life energy
having departed, the remaining five principles are in the plane of
kama loka. This process takes about half an hour.

The natural separation of the principles brought about by death
divides the total man into three parts:

* First, the visible body with all its elements left to further
disintegration on the earth plane, where all that it is composed of is
in time resolved into the different physical departments of nature.
*
* Second, the kama rupa made up of the astral body and the passions
and desires, which also begins at once to go to pieces on the astral
plane;
*
* Third, the real man, the upper triad of Atma-Buddhi-Manas, deathless
but now out of earth conditions, devoid of body, begins in devachan to
function solely as mind clothed in a very ethereal vesture which it
will shake off when the time comes for it to return to earth.
*
Kama loka -- or the place of desire -- is the astral region
penetrating and surrounding the earth. As a place it is on and in and
about the earth. Its extent is to a measurable distance from the
earth, but the ordinary laws obtaining here do not obtain there, and
entities therein are not under the same conditions as to space and
time as we are.


DESIRES -- HAVE THEIR OWN PLACE

It is called the plane of desire because it relates to the fourth
principle, and in it the ruling force is desire devoid of and divorced
from intelligence. It is an astral sphere intermediate between earthly
and heavenly life. The fact underlying this is that the soul may be
detained in kama loka by the enormous force of some unsatisfied
desire, and cannot get rid of the astral and kamic clothing until that
desire is satisfied by some one on earth or by the soul itself.

But if the person was pure minded and of high aspirations, the
separation of the principles on that plane is soon completed,
permitting the Higher Triad to go into Devachan.

Being the purely astral sphere, it partakes of the nature of the
astral matter which is essentially earthly and devilish, and in it all
the forces work undirected by soul or conscience. It is the slag-pit,
as it were, of the great furnace of life. In kama loka all the
hidden desires and passions are let loose in consequence of the
absence of body, and for that reason the state is vastly more
diversified than the life plane.

It is generally supposed that the desires and passions are inherent
tendencies in the individual, and they have an altogether unreal and
misty appearance for the ordinary student. While the man is living in
the world, the desires and passions -- the principle kama -- have no
separate life apart from the astral and inner man, being diffused
throughout his being.

During mortal life the desires and passions are guided by the mind and
soul; after death they work without guidance from the former master;
while we live we are responsible for them and their effects, and when
we have left this life we are still responsible, although they go on
working and making effects on others and without our direct guidance.
In this is seen the continuance of responsibility.

In kama are the really active and important tendencies and Skandhas
are being made from day to day under the law that every thought
combines instantly with one of the elemental forces of nature,
becoming to that extent an entity which will endure in accordance with
the strength of the thought as it leaves the brain, and all of these
are inseparably connected with the being who evolved them. There is no
way of escaping; all we can do is to have thoughts of good quality,
for the highest of the Masters themselves are not exempt from this
law, but they "people their current in space" with entities powerful
for good alone.


Now in kama loka this mass of desire and thought exists very
definitely. Hence it is said to remain until the being comes out of
devachan, and then at once by the law of attraction it is drawn to the
being, who from it as basis builds up a new set of skandhas for the
new life. Every atom going to make up the man has a memory of its own
which is capable of lasting a length of time in proportion to the
force given it.

In the case of a very material and gross or selfish person the force
lasts longer than in any other. Its purely astral portion contains and
carries the record of all that ever passed before the person when
living, for one of the qualities of the astral substance is to absorb
all scenes and pictures and the impressions of all thoughts, to keep
them, and to throw them forth by reflection when the conditions
permit.


DEVACHAN

Struggling out of the body Atma-Buddhi-Manas, begins to think in a
manner different from that which the body and brain permitted in life.
This is the state of Devachan, Sanskrit : "the place of the gods."
The Self in Devachan is devoid of a mortal body. The stay in
Devachan is proportionate to the merit earned by the being in its last
life [from a few year to as much as 100 centuries -- the average being
about 1500 years] and when the mental forces peculiar to the state are
exhausted, "the being is drawn down again to be reborn in the world of
mortals."

Devachan is therefore an interlude between births in the world. The
law of karma which forces us all to enter the world, being ceaseless
in its operation and also universal in scope, acts also on the being
in devachan, for only by the force or operation of Karma are we taken
out of devachan.

The last series of powerful and deeply imprinted thoughts are those
which give color and trend to the whole life in devachan. The last
moment will color each subsequent moment. On those the soul and mind
fix themselves and weave of them a whole set of events and
experiences, expanding them to their highest limit, carrying out all
that was not possible in life.


WHY DEVACHAN ?

The necessity for this state after death is one of the necessities of
evolution growing out of the nature of Mind and Soul. The very nature
of manas requires a devachanic state as soon as the body is lost, and
it is simply the effect of loosening the bonds placed upon the mind by
its physical and astral encasement. In life we can but to a fractional
extent act out the thoughts we have each moment; and still less can we
exhaust the psychic energies engendered by each day's aspirations and
dreams. The energy thus engendered is not lost or annihilated, but is
stored in Manas, but the body, brain, and astral body permit no full
development of the force. Hence, held latent until death, it bursts
then from the weakened bonds and plunges Manas, the thinker, into the
expansion, use, and development of the thought-force set up in life.

The whole process is remedial, restful, and beneficial. For if the
average man returned at once to another body in the same civilization
he had just quitted, his soul would be completely tired out and
deprived of the needed opportunity for the development of the higher
part of his nature.



(extracts from The OCEAN OF THEOSOPHY (Judge)

DTB



-----Original Message-----
From: Mic Forster
Sent:	Saturday, November 30, 2002 2:34 PM
To:
Subject:	Re: More on Suicide

Nisk wrote:
>the individual (a woman) said she saw the whole
>panarama of all the events that took her to the
>point of taking her life

This reminds me of some readings I did a few years
ago. Unfortunately my memory has also deserted me on
this one but from what I can remember many people that
had died but then were brought back to life described
seeing this "whole panarama of all events" that took
place in that individual's life. This author attempted
to explain these "visions" in the light of science.
He/she (can't remember) basically said that when we
die the oxygen in our brains is slowly lost. As this
process occurs we have these hallucinations of events
that have occurred in our life. The much observed
phenomenon of "going to the light" when we die is
merely the extinguishing of oxygen in our brain and
the "light" is that final suffocation of the brain. I
distinctly remember the author saying that this was a
cool evolutionary adaptation that allowed that final
phase of life to be a trip on the hippie love boat.
I'm not saying I necessarily agree with this but it
was a neat explanation, perhaps too neat?